Tuesday, July 5, 2016

British woman under fire for rubbishing Africa after visit to Zambia

Louise Linton spent some time in Zambia and decided to publish a book about her experience. Unfortunately for her, it's a small world where everyone has access to the internet, including those in the "dense jungle of Africa" as she describes it. An excerpt of her book recently published by the Guardian (See below) is causing serious backlash from Zambians and other Africans who are offended by her choice of words, the white supremacy tone, the incoherencies and blatant lies. Below is a video of Zambia, the excerpt from her book, and reactions to her book.

You can read the excerpt below:

Two hours had passed - maybe three. I couldn’t tell. The
dense jungle canopy above me had eliminated what little moonlight there was and
plunged me into inky blackness deep in the Zambian bush. I lay very still,
listening for the armed rebels and wondering how long it was until daybreak,
not knowing if I’d survive to see it.

With my body shaking and my brain frozen with fear, it was
hard to remember how I’d ended up there, 6,000 miles from home. An 18-year-old
Scot and former pupil of the prestigious Fettes College, I had come to Africa
with hopes of helping some of the world’s poorest people. But my gap year had
become a living nightmare when I inadvertently found myself caught up in the
fringes of the Congolese War.

Gunshots echoed through the bush and seemed to be getting
closer. I couldn’t imagine the awful, sporadic acts of violence that were being
committed as the village was ransacked. Fear and anger for the children
consumed my thoughts. Part of me wanted to jump up and make it all stop, but
then I heard shrill screams and shrank back into my hiding place.

As the night ticked interminably by, I tried not to think
what the rebels would do to the 'skinny white muzungu with long angel hair’ if
they found me. Clenching my jaw to stop my teeth chattering, I squeezed my eyes
shut and reminded myself how I’d come to be a central character in this horror
story.

I could hear the voice of my mother, Rachel, in my head: her
soft Scottish accent always sparks memories of my childhood on the outskirts of
Edinburgh, where I grew up with my brother, sister and our many pets - even a
boating lake and a secret garden. We had everything we could possibly want and
were very happy - until the day when cancer took our mother from us and
everything changed forever. She was only 53.

My sister fled to college and then went travelling, while my
brother threw himself into work, following in our father’s footsteps in
property. Needing my own escape and hoping to continue my mother’s mission to
do good works in faraway places, I’d accepted a position as a volunteer at a
commercial fishing lodge in Zambia. It was the most remote country on the list
I was given and the one most in need.

“Find a bolt-hole as soon as you get there,” my father
pleaded. “Somewhere to hide, just in case.” I’d laughed and assured him I’d be
fine but now here I was on the jungle floor, in a fragile minefield of vines
crawling with potentially lethal creatures - including the dreaded rain
spiders, up to twelve inches across.

My innocent dreams of teaching the villagers English or
educating them about the world now seemed ridiculously naïve. With a cheery smile,
I’d waved goodbye to Dad and jumped on a plane to Africa without researching
anything about its tumultuous political history or realising that my
destination – Lake Tanganyika - was just miles from war-torn Congo.

Life was idyllic at first, a gap year student’s dream. My
new home was beautiful and I made close friendships with the local Bemba
people. I learned some of their language, planted a vegetable garden and
created a little school under a Mukusi tree, writing about my experiences in my
diary. I was still struggling with the loss of my mother and found special
comfort in my bond with Zimba, a six-year-old orphan girl with HIV who called
me “Ru-eese”.

Should I stay and care for Zimba, risking my life? Or flee
to the safety of my family and break her heart?

But I soon learned that Africa is rife with hidden danger. I
witnessed random acts of violence, contracted malaria and had close encounters
with lions, elephants, crocodiles and snakes. As monsoon season came and went,
the Hutu-Tutsi conflict in neighbouring Congo began to escalate and then spill
over into Zambia with repercussions all along the lake. Thousands of people
were displaced and we heard brutal tales of rape and murder.

Then one day, without warning, armed rebels descended on our
bay. Taken by surprise, I spent a night huddled with others in an old straw
hut, hoping not to be found as we listened to the engines of the rebel boats
drawing near. The next morning, I was faced with a dreadful dilemma. Should I
stay and care for Zimba, risking my life? Or flee to the safety of my family
and break her heart? The rebels would surely return and the plane to take me
home wasn’t due for several weeks. Torn, I wept for my mother and for myself as
I hadn’t wept in years.

A mail plane arrived unexpectedly a few days later and -
with its propellers still rotating - its pilot offered me a ride. But as I made
the decision to board, Zimba ran wailing from the village and begged me to
stay. So I did, but within days the rebels came again. This time, I had no
choice but to flee alone in a desperate attempt to stay alive. For hours on
end, I remained on the jungle floor with no idea if I would make it or if any
of the people I had come to love would survive. During my months in Africa I
had become part of the same story that my mother started when she spent time
administering medical treatment to the natives of Papua New Guinea as a young
woman, but suddenly my story didn’t look like it was going to have such a happy
ending.

How had I come to be in such a place and for what? To prove
myself worthy of her? She would never have wanted me to end my days like this.
That was when I knew, deep in my heart, that it was time to go home.

My time in Zambia, and especially that long night in hiding,
is imprinted on my mind now as a defining coming-of-age moment. It was the
point at which my appreciation of the fragility of life – already shaped by my
mother’s death - was fully realized.

Now that I’m a grown woman living in California and pursuing
a very different dream – as an actress and film producer – I know that the
skinny white girl once so incongruous in Africa still lives on inside me. Even
in this world where I’m supposed to belong, I still sometimes feel out of
place. Whenever that happens, though, I try to remember a smiling gap-toothed
child with HIV whose greatest joy was to sit on my lap and drink from a bottle
of Coca-Cola. Zimba taught me many beautiful words but the one I like the most
is Nsansa. Happiness.